Oregon day care closes as kids fall sick after insecticide exposure

A Coos Bay day care center shut down Monday in the aftermath of an insecticide-spraying incident that left at least a half-dozen children and two staff members suffering from inflamed eyes and breathing problems.

State regulators opened an inquiry into the May 5 incident but have not sent anyone to visit the Coos Bay Children's Academy Inc., which had an enrollment of about 80 kids.

Instead, the owner voluntarily closed the center Monday as several key employees quit and parents pulled children en masse over concerns about transparency and safety.

Before the insecticide incident, the Children's Academy had been cited for six state rule violations in less than a year of operations. None prompted a fine from Oregon's Office of Child Care, the state's regulator of day care centers.

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The incident along Oregon's southern coast raises broader questions about oversight of troubled day care centers by the Office of Child Care. Across Oregon, state officials rarely shut down large commercial day care centers even in the face of well-documented problems.

In Coos Bay, day-care employees say they recently blew the whistle on several violations within their own facility, but that state officials were slow to intervene.

"We feel that they don't want to displace parents and will keep bad centers open," said Tabatha Inman, who worked as the office manager of the Coos Bay center and who sent her two children there for care.

"Knowing what I know now," she added, state officials "should have shut it down."

Concerned employees warned parents about the insecticide incident after children fell ill during the first week of May. The owner of the day care later urged employees to tell an upset staff member to "shut up" and recommended they conduct "damage control," according to an email sent by the owner to staff and shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The owner, Elizabeth "Betty" Ewing, said in an interview Monday that she bought and sprayed the wrong insecticide inside her childcare center. But Ewing blamed the mistake on an employee of the Coos Bay Grange Co-op who sold her the product, saying she received the wrong chemical.

"We really did think we were doing the right thing," she said. "I've lost everything because of this."

Barry Robino, chief executive for the Grange, declined Tuesday to directly address Ewing's allegation that she was given the wrong product, saying the matter is under investigation.

"Grange Co-op sells a variety of products for a variety of remedies, but consumers are advised to use products in accordance with manufacturers' instructions," Robino said in a statement. "We are looking into this matter further to confirm that the product the customer purchased was used in accordance with manufacturer's instructions."

It's not clear how many children and employees fell ill in Coos Bay because neither the state nor the county health department have compiled an accurate tally. But The Oregonian/OregonLive spoke with the parents of six children who described similar health problems in the days after the children were exposed to a powerful insecticide. Two said they took their children to the doctor, and another said she called for medical advice.

Parents and former employees say the number of sick children is likely higher, although not everyone sought medical treatment.

State officials said they took "swift and immediate action" after learning of the incident May 5. They spoke with county health officials and poison control to determine if the facility posed an immediate health risk. The Office of Child Care recommended to the day care that it send children home early on May 5, but many parents did not heed the request from the center. State officials otherwise were satisfied the facility remained safe.

The state is now reviewing problems at the Coos Bay center, which opened last summer, but officials have yet to determine whether the use of insecticide violated state rules.

They defended their oversight of the day care center.

"Our charge is not to just drop the hammer every time somebody gets a single violation," said Richard Riggs, legal administrator for the Office of Child Care, noting that Coos Bay is an underserved community in need of large day care providers.

Parents and staff are pinning their kids' health problems on the day care center's use of an insecticide called Tempo.

In April, fleas had overtaken the Coos Bay facility. In response, Ewing and her husband sprayed the inside of the day care center with Tempo on April 29, according to a statement Ewing later sent to parents.

Ewing told parents she bought the insecticide after thoroughly researching its safety. Ewing also told parents she followed the instructions when mixing and applying the insecticide, according to the statement.

But within days, children and staff fell ill.

Lacey Reiss remembers picking her 3-year-old son up from school May 4. She blames exposure to the insecticide for her son's illness.

"He was really sick," she said. "He was coughing to the point of throwing up."

Travis Patterson's 3-year-old son also got sick. Patterson said his son had a nasty cough and yellow discharge oozed from his eyes. After that, Patterson said he worried about his son's safety at the day care center.

"It made me pretty angry, to be honest," he said. "Not only do I pay these people, I trust them to take care of my kid. I'm supposed to know that he's safe and taken care of there."

Parents contacted by The Oregonian/OregonLive praised the center's employees for telling them about the use of insecticide after kids became sick during the first week of May. The owner, who lives in California, didn't formally provide details to parents until May 8. She issued a written statement and read it aloud at meeting with parents that night.

George von Dassow said he arrived at the meeting ready to offer the owner forgiveness. One of his twin 2-year-old daughter's eyes had become inflamed and leaked goo. But he realized mistakes can happen.

Von Dassow said "the owner was clearly upset" that staff notified parents about what happened. He defended employees for speaking up, noting that parents would have arrived with pitch forks had it remained a secret.

"I left the meeting pretty sure that the owner was not terribly interested in what parents or anybody else had to say," he said.

Parents quickly pulled students from the center and, by the end of last week, several key staff members had decided to quit.

Ewing chose to shut down the center over the weekend. On Monday, with her doors closed, she told a reporter she planned to file bankruptcy and was already pursuing an insurance claim against the store that sold her the insecticide.

Ewing said she researched and thought she was buying Tempo SC Ultra. But she said the store instead gave her a different type of Tempo. She declined to provide a photo of the bottle.

Ewing acknowledged sending a strongly worded email to staff members last week as she tried to cling to her business. She said she was being undermined by employees who encouraged parents to pull their children from care.

"I'm angry because I'm being picked on relentlessly," she said. "I was upset. But I've been dealing with it for months."

Inman, the office manager, said she and the facility's director called the Office of Child Care to report multiple problems.

According to state records, the center violated rules by failing to provide adequate food to children, falling short of required staffing levels, not fixing a playground hazard and inadvertently leaving a child outdoors for two minutes. Additionally, the state found that the center violated disciplinary rules when a staff member threatened to spank a child.

Inman said she decided to quit her job last week and removed her kids from the facility, fearing for their safety.

"There's no way in hell I'd ever take my kids back, especially if Betty's in charge," she said.

Since learning of the insecticide incident May 5, no member of the Office of Child Care has attempted to contact parents or staff, officials said Monday. Officials didn't think a visit was immediately needed, said Dawn Woods, the agency's director, but they planned to have a regulator drop by toward the end of this week.

Neither the state Office of Child Care nor the Coos County health department on Monday could say with certainty how many children fell ill. Coos County said four children with symptoms visited medical facilities, although doctors couldn't confirm it was because of exposure. State officials said initial reports suggested three children and three staff members were sick.

The Office of Child Care has yet to determine if the pesticide spraying violated any rules, but a decision could be reached by next week.

"We're going to be continually assessing as we gather evidence," Woods said.

Dallas Brown didn't need much time to assess.

Brown worked as a teacher's aide at the center for about six months. His 4-year-old daughter, Stella, also received care there.

But she complained that her throat hurt and her tonsils were the size of large marbles, he said, after the building was sprayed. He pulled her from day care May 3 and she never returned.

"It's heartbreaking," he said. "As a parent, you do the best you can to provide for your children. You try to monitor what they watch and keep close tabs on their education. And as a father of a young daughter, I feel like I put her in harm's way."